Chinese Keep Throwing Metal Coins Into Engines Of Airplanes For Good Luck

How do you make sure that you are
being showered with luck? In China, people believe that throwing metal coins
into the airplane engine is one way of ensuring luck. For the seventh time, in
the last couple of years, a Chinese person has been arrested again for
attempting to throw a handful of metal coins into the engine of the airplane!

On Monday morning, a 66-year old
Woman named Wang was detained for trying to throw metal coins, a total of six
of them, into the engine of a Tianjin Airlines plane right before take-off.
Luckily, the coins fell down on the ground rather than into the multi-million
dollar engine. The act was noted by an airport worker, and an announcement was
made so that whoever did it could come forward. Wang didn’t surrender herself
but was then identified using surveillance footage.

She was detained at the airport of
Hohhot – the inner Mongolian capital – and then placed for a duration of ten
days under the administrative detention. The other passengers were switched to
another plane, and the flight to the city of Chifeng was delayed by a total of
two hours.

This incident has happened a month
after a man, 31 years of age, was also detained for attempting to throw coins
into the engine of a Hainan Airlines plane. The justification for his action
was that he was trying to make sure that he and his family had a safe flight.
He ended up in jail for ten days. Back in January, two women in their twenties
were also arrested in Jinan Yaoqiang International Airport for doing the same
thing.

Over the years, the airlines have
moved from a stance of leniency to a harsher stance on such matters. In fact,
Lucky Air – a Chinese airline – sued a passenger for $20,000 for causing a
delay in a flight by attempting to drop coins into the engine of the plane.
Thankfully, all of the attempts by superstitious persons have failed; otherwise
the results could have been disastrous. According to Ouyang Jie, a professor of
the Civil Aviation University of China, a coin making its way to the engine
core can cause it to cease working in midair.

A metal coin can cause damage ranging
from damaging the engine’s blades to catastrophic damage by reaching the
engine’s core. That is why airlines delay their flights to make sure that all
of the coins that were thrown have been accounted for before resuming normal
operations.